Social Watch E-Newsletter - Issue 166 - May 2, 2014

The President of the UN General Assembly’s convened the Interactive Dialogue “Elements for a Monitoring and Accountability Framework for the Post-2015 Development Agenda” that was held on May 1, 2014 in the United Nations Headquarters in New York. The outcome of the event will provide an additional input into the report mandated to the Secretary-General to synthesize all inputs available by the end of 2014.
Roberto Bissio, Social Watch Coordinator, who participated in the panel highlighted that accountability is only meaningful if the powerful can be brought into account. We firmly believe that it is up to citizens to hold their own governments accountable. Corporations have to be made accountable not only to their owners and consumers but to their workers and to the people that are affected by their operations. Corporate accountability requires rules set by governments, respect for human rights and environmental due diligence as well as reporting, ensuring access by those negatively affected to an effective remedy, tax transparency; proper land appropriation rules, etc. Read more.

The participants in the civil society strategy meeting on monitoring and accountability organized by Social Watch last february in Montevideo were asked about how they personally work and relate with the huge task of making the powerful accountable. Here is what they said:

Martina Kabisama

In Tanzania we monitor election issues. Seventy NGOs came toghether and work in election observation in a Social Watch project that we learnt from Social Watch Kenya.

See the video here.

Simon Stocker

Inequality and poverty is not just a development issue, is an issue of all countries. Migration as development actors and social inclusion is a big challange for the State.

See the video here.

See all the videos here. More coming soon.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Staff Discussion Note Women, Work, and the Economy: Macroeconomic Gains from Gender Equity, September, 2013 (Fund Note), covers no new territory. Nor does it really connect with what the IMF does through its IMF-supported programs with developing countries. For the most part, it presents data and analysis of the World Bank’s World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development, supplemented with Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) analysisas well as insights and findings from an earlier IMF Working paper, Gender and Its Relevance to Macroeconomic Policy: A Survey.
The report makes the following salient points: Women’s contribution to measured economy activity, growth and well-being is far below its potential; Progress on gender equality has stalled; and Gender inequality has serious macroeconomic consequences. Read more